Chapter 3

Bloody hell!

Billy stared at the duke, sure he couldn’t have heard him correctly. Surely the older man hadn’t meant to dismiss all his servants, inside and outside the house?

Although the outraged expression on Moreland’s face, with his mouth agape and his eyes bulging in a mottled red face, said that was exactly what the duke had just done.

But surely the other man wasn’t choosing to dismiss all his servants based on what Billy had just told him?

“Well, why are you still standing there, man, when I have dismissed you and the rest of your family?” the duke challenged the butler coldly.

He was!

“For what reason?” the butler demanded.

“For the reason you and your family are totally untrustworthy. Something I will not tolerate in my home.”

Moreland’s hard blue gaze was turned on Billy. “You’d listen to the lies of this little guttersnipe, one you’ve only just met, over someone who’s worked for you for two years without complaint?”

“That is because you have had no reason to complain.” The duke looked down the length of his nose at him. “And you only appear more guilty of misconduct by immediately assuming it must be something Billy has said to me that must be the reason for your dismissal. When the truth of the matter is, I trusted you to be both discreet and loyal, only to now learn that trust has not only been misplaced but also used and abused. It would seem, for the main part, so that it might benefit you and your extended family.”

The angry color deepened in the butler’s cheeks. “This little bastard has been nothing but trouble since he came into the household. He’s always talking and laughing about you with the other servants,” he added with a sneer.

“That’s a lie!” Billy immediately bristled, fists clenched.

“It’s the truth,” the butler scorned. “He also made unwanted advances to one of the footmen and a groom.”

“Take that back!” Billy marched across the room to stand aggressively in front of the other man, despite being at least six inches shorter and many pounds lighter. “You heard me. Take it back.” He raised those clenched fists.

* * *

“Moreland!” Wulf snapped when he saw the butler’s fists also starting to rise.

The butler might be twenty years Billy’s senior, but he was also at least fifty pounds heavier and could no doubt do the younger man great damage if he hit him with one of his meaty fists.

Wulf rose to his feet, towering over the butler by an inch or two once he had stepped forward. “Your whole family will pack their things and leave this house tonight. I do not care where you go,” he said, forestalling what he was sure would have been the man’s next comment. “Only that you should all leave my home immediately.”

Moreland glared at him with hatred in his eyes. “You’ll regret it if you do this,” he warned.

“I have already done it, and I do not, and shall not, regret it for a single moment. Now get out,” Wulf repeated coldly.

Moreland turned that hate-filled gaze onto Billy, the younger man still standing in front of him with his fists raised. “I’ll see you pay for this,” he sneered.

“I’d like to see you try,” Billy mocked him.

“I’ll make you both pay for this, see if I don’t.” The butler included Wulf in his scathing glance before he turned on his heel and marched from the room. The slam of a door could be heard at the back of the house seconds later.

“Bloody hell,” Billy murmured with an incredulous glance in Wulf’s direction. “Did you really think any of that through? Because the dismissal of all Moreland’s relatives includes every servant in the house and all the grooms in the stable.”

“What about the head groom?”

“He’s Moreland’s brother-in-law.”

Wulf gave a shake of his head. He really had had no idea.

But, to be fair, why would he?

It was usually the task of a butler to engage the other household staff, and the cook did the same with the kitchen staff.

Now, it seemed, Wulf had no household staff at all to see to his needs, and no grooms in the stables to take care of his horses.

“Bloody hell,” Billy said again, admiringly this time.

Wulf’s mouth began to twitch, and he bit his top lip in an effort to stop himself from smiling. Only for that twitch to become too strong to control as he started to laugh.

Billy took one look at him and did the same, the two of them soon laughing in a way that bordered on hysteria.

Laughter that only increased when, minutes later, they heard the front door slam as evidence that Moreland, at least, had no intention of leaving by the servants’ entrance at the back of the house.

“He’s probably made off with half the family silver,” Billy speculated.

“Well, at least I shall still have the other half,” Wulf said dryly.

“You’re only sayin’ that because you know you can send men to find him, if that should be the case.”

He nodded. “The benefit of being the Minister for Law and Order is knowing exactly which men to send.”

Billy grinned at him, obviously highly satisfied with that answer. “Moreland’s a bastard, anyway.”

So Wulf had gathered, after his final conversation with the other man. And it was very much their final conversation.

Whatever retribution Moreland thought he could bring down on Wulf for his dismissal, the other man would quickly learn that Wulf had access to the assistance of men who had few scruples and were loyal to Wulf in a way that Moreland had obviously never been. Some of those men Wulf had met within the courts over which he resided. Others were men he had met in the army and who remained loyal to him and his three closest friends.

Moreland’s threat was toothless. As Moreland himself would quickly be if he dared to even attempt to cause Wulf or Billy harm in any way.

They had completely sobered by this time, the house now shrouded in a complete silence such as Wulf had never heard before within these walls.

There always seemed to be a servant or two in the entrance hall or going up or down the stairs whenever he came home or went out. Also, there was often the sound of soft chatter discernible from the kitchen.

Now the only sound to be heard was the slight but familiar creaking of the house itself and the ticking of the ornate longcase clock in the corner of the room.

It was slightly unnerving, Wulf acknowledged.

“Well.” Billy had now sobered enough to once again be able to resume his cheeky grin. “If you think I’m going to cook your breakfast for ya in the mornin’ before bringing it all the way up the stairs to ya bedchamber for ya, then ya going to be sadly disappointed.”

It was the indignant expression on Billy’s face as much as his admonishment that immediately caused Wulf to start laughing again.

“What the ’ell’s so funny now?” Billy demanded to know.

“You are,” Wulf choked through his laughter. “When we both know that it would more likely be I who cooked and brought you breakfast in bed than the other way about.”

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

No, of course he didn’t.

Because Wulf had been so determined not to reveal his feelings, when Billy had never shown any sign of returning that interest, that he had always made a point of never stepping over the line between the tentative friendship they seemed to have developed.

Wulf started to laugh again when he recalled that Billy, apart from the French peacock who was useless at doing anything beyond keeping Wulf’s clothes in order, was now his only employee.

“I wonder if you’ll still find it so amusin’ by tomorrow evenin’, when no fires have been lit and no food’s been cooked all day,” Billy scorned after Wulf had explained the reason for his renewed humor.

“I shall eat what you eat.”

“Stale bread, if there is any, and cheese?”

“On second thought, I believe I shall spend the day at and also dine within the comfortable walls of my club,” Wulf announced.

Having no servants would still, he inwardly acknowledged, be a great inconvenience.

But now that he knew of Moreland’s duplicity, he could not bear to have the other man, or any member of his family, within this house for a moment longer than necessary. It made him inwardly cringe to contemplate having such an unscrupulous charlatan living and working within his home.

He eyed Billy mockingly. “I believe that the hiring of new servants should now come under the purview of my new temporary secretary.”

Billy grinned. “Oh you do, do you.”

“Hmm.” Wulf nodded. “Is he up to the task, do you think?”

* * *

“More than,” Billy easily accepted the challenge. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t save you money while doing it too,” he added shrewdly.

The duke frowned. “You think Moreland, to add to his other crimes, was also fleecing me?”

“I’m guessing only by a penny or two added to what he told you was each of the servants’ weekly wage,” Billy surmised. “But considering how many of them worked here, that would still come to a tidy sum each week and over time.”

Wulferston shook his head. “I feel somewhat…diminished by having been shown so thoroughly my complete ignorance in this matter.”

Billy gave a dismissive snort. “Well, you was hardly going to spend time in the servants’ quarters listening to their gossip like I did, now were ya?”

“Even so…”

Billy could see that the duke really was unhappy with what he saw as a failing on his part. But there was no way the older man could possibly have known what Moreland was doing when he could have had no idea of the man’s familial connection to all the other members of his staff.

Moreland must have been scared shitless when the duke had chosen to introduce Billy into his household.

A fear, as it happened, the butler had been right to feel.

“Tell you what.” Billy moved to the decanter of brandy to refill the duke’s glass and then poured the remaining quarter of an inch of the liquid into another glass for himself. “Let’s drink to the routing of devious butlers,” he proposed. He gave the duke his glass before lifting his own.

The duke eyed him ruefully. “I do not believe secretaries are usually invited to lift a glass of brandy in the library with their ducal employer.”

“Maybe not, but this temporary secretary does.” Billy winked at him before downing the brandy in one swallow. Only to immediately start choking as the fiery liquid burned his throat and then all the way down to his gullet. “Jesus Christ!” he wheezed as he put down the empty glass, sure that his mouth and throat were on fire.

“Here.” Wulf held out a glass of water he had poured from the jug beside the decanter.

Their fingers brushed lightly as Billy took the glass.

* * *

Touching Billy instantly sent a quiver of awareness along the length of Wulf’s arm and caused a warmth to explode in his chest.

Wulf had thought the house to be quiet before, but in that moment, as he and Billy stood alone together in the library, it seemed as if the room was filled with a silence so intense that the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner reverberated in the room in the same pounding rhythm as Wulf’s heart.

Billy slowly raised his head to look at Wulf from between thick lashes. The pupils of his eyes were so dilated that only a thin line of green remained. His cheeks were flushed. His lips full and parted and a delicate rose in color.

Billy had never looked lovelier.

Wulf swayed slightly forward as his gaze became transfixed on the slight redness and swelling at the corner of Billy’s soft and pouting bottom lip. He was filled with a longing to gently kiss that tender flesh.

A longing Billy also felt?

Could Wulf…?

Dare he…?

Whatever Wulf had been thinking of doing, the moment passed when the library door was suddenly thrown open for the third time that evening.

Really, did no one knock and wait to be told to enter anymore?

“Monsieur le Duc!” A distraught Valentin stood in the doorway.

The Frenchman more than lived up to his reputation this evening as being a peacock in the purple silk coat, blue waistcoat, and pale peach breeches which did little to hide the fact the fussy little man had grown far too fond of his “pastries,” as he called them.

“Monsieur le Duc!” he repeated, his eyes wide and feverish-looking. “I noticed the fire in my bedchamber remained unlit, and when I went down to the kitchen to chivvy a maid into lighting it, I discovered they are all gone. Every one of them. Monsieur le Duc, someone has entered the ’ouse and stolen all your servants!” he announced grandly.